Or, have the Linux user look at his TV over his shoulder, then turn and stare directly at the camera with a tear dropping from his eye, Recycling-Indian style.
Or would that make sense in the context of the actual film? I wouldn't know; you couldn't pay me enough to go see a movie about "hackers" trying to save the world, or whatever. That stuff only happens in fairy-tales and Scandinavian countries.
For THX Multimedia support (not the same THX standard as for [home-]theater), the recognized favorite speaker rig for gamers is the Klipsch Promedias. They've been available for around $250 for, oh, I dunno, forever, making Dell's announcement sorta unremarkable.
Interested readers may want to check the forums and reviews 3D Sound Surge to see how these speakers fare against speakers from Videologic, Cambridge Soundworks, and Aletec Lansing (which in my circle have somewhat of a rep for poor-quality construction).
Although many anime series are animated better than their American counterparts, most are cheaply animated, simply drawn, and generally lesser quality animation.
IMO, I don't think the frugality of some of the animation production houses necessarily makes their works poorly animated. That's part of the stylistic charm of a lot of shows. Although overly simplistic animation quality in a theatrically-released film can be intolerable, it's always interesting for me to see what Japanese animators are capable of doing with less cels, using less detail, in a TV series or (sometimes) OAV release. A lot of the most interesting frames you can capture from a Japanese series are the simply illustrated ones. (WB's Batman series was refreshing, because it followed a lot of the same principles. Contrast with the more-detailed "Sky Surfers" in syndication...not pretty.)
You're dead-on in saying that they are different from most Western programs, though. A good storyline and good character[/mecha] design are all an animated series needs. Good music and acting go a long way too. Too many American cartoons are produced with only children in mind, meaning all of the above are supposedly optional. Well, I gravitated more towards Star Blazers/Yamato than the Superfriends when I was a kid, and I know a bunch of others who were the same way.
What about a version-level credits file with no email adresses listed? That sorta eliminates both problems, and can be helpful in showing who the guys that introduce misfeatures are. Whoops, there goes that idea...
You have insulted Dragon's Lair! Now you must die! >_<#
Seriously, the original arcade Dragon's Lair and Space Ace (and that weird Japanese Don Quixote game) were probably the best-looking games of their time. They may be primitive by today's standards (possibly even extremely so), but they were equally as innovative at the time (read: optical disc (laserdisc) reader in an arcade cabinet).
I do get your point; I was just addressing the jab at the importance of MIDI that you took. (BTW, software synthesizers like QuickTime, DirectMusic, and the Yamaha softsynths are all too CPU-intensive, and have latency problems.)
However, on second examination, I think you and FFFish both actually underestimated the work that people are doing in the field of PC audio in general, 3D audio for games and DVD playback in specific. Sure, Aureal's A3D died a sad death, but DirectSound3D is still around, EAX still exists for some reason or another, QSound is being resurrected by the Thunderbird Avenger (love that name) processor in Philips' new Acoustic Edge (awesome 5.1 card with Yamaha XG MIDI softsynth), and Sensaura is actually doing stuff that's finally making A3D sound a bit dated.
None of that stuff is best left to the CPU. It's just like unaccelerated software 3D animation rendering on consumer PCs...you can do it, but it's not always very nice to witness.
Long story short, there will always be a place for dedicated hardware. I don't think PC audio has gone the way of hardware MPEG-1 decoding just yet.
How important is, say, realistic MIDI now when nearly everything is.mp3 and.wav (or functional equivalent)?
Realistic MIDI playback may be getting progressively more irrelevant for some (not me...I'm going to be getting a Hoontech XG card as soon as I have the time), but digital musicians rely on MIDI for producing their tunes. Where do you think a lot of your MP3s and WAVs come from? Not everything you here is a live recording of a live performance, although with some good soundbanks you might be fooled.
I have been interested in Saturday morning cartoons from an artistic perspective for quite some time, and it has always seemed to me that one of their central themes is the lack of identity of a culture that started out as an British colony and has gone on to being the world's truly foremost modern international capitalist nation in a little over 200 years.
Scooby Doo Halloween costumes are another expression of the angst that this lack of cultural identity has caused, as the old certainties of British rule were ripped away and replaced by the values of Democracy. The Victorian ethos and clothing of the British have been replaced by the tie-dyed shirts and communist values of the slashdot hippie. These Scooby Doo Halloween costumes, and indeed the entire Saturday morning cartoon movement, are an unconscious desire to return to the oppressive certainties of old Colonial America, IMHO.
He also started and is the current head of Animeigo (for those who don't know, "eigo" is Japanese for "English language"), the coolest old-school commercial subtitlers. They got it right, dammit: small fonts in legible colors, with subtitles for the sondtracks' lyrics coexisting with the dialog.
P.S. A "Did you know" for all you true blue Mac geeks out there: Robert Woodhead also wrote what later became Virex, the first Mac anti-virus program worth using.
Um...ever heard of cosplay? It's not my cup of tea, but if you go to any con, you'll see some otaku dressed as his favorite character.
It's not just an American thing, either. Watch Gainax's "Otaku no Video" and you'll learn what Japanese really think about fans of anime, sentai, Western and Japanese SF, military stuff, and other hobbyist culture.
Incidentally, I'm of the opinion that any Westerner who considers himself an "otaku" when it comes to anime fandom really only does so because the term already exists. This is unlike Japan, where "otaku" is a somewhat derogatory term originally used for obsessed people. Hell...it seems like most people in Japan read manga, and public recognition of even moderately-popular characters is immediate and common, so fandom isn't a hard question...it's only a matter of how hard-core you are...and it wouldn't take too much of a hard-core attitude (by Japanese standards) to put one of those suits on.
The guy who made those suits...now that's an otaku. Next step...Lego version.
A little OT, but there are a bunch of DBZ games. There was an arcade game that I'm still trying to get ahold of, and then of course there are the Super Famicom/SNES (and others) fighting games. Damn, those are fun. Some people just try powering up to max and doing fireballs over and over, but all you have to do has deflect or power-block them, and you'd end up with considerably more reserve energy than your opponent, at which point you could wail on them as much as you like. =)
Yeah, I know. The NEC SuperGrafx and Sega Mega Drive CD/Victor WonderMega were all available pre-PSX too. But it was just something that caught my eye, and got me nostalgic for when I used to read EGM and Die Hard Gaming Fan, itching for when Sony would beef up my Super NES into a CD-ROM unit that was still being called "Playstation."
KOJIMA: Before PlayStation, there was Super FamiCon [Super Family Computer], which took CD-ROMs. Then, for the first time, you could play games and music on the same machine, and the sound you could use with games was much better. You didn't have those games with the funny "ping ping pong ping" noises anymore. This was a big step for game software; it was really great. Next, the image quality got a lot better, more like movies. That was a big step, too. Then there was PlayStation, introducing polygons, and the capacity for image expression improved tremendously. That was another really big step for the industry.
Eh? I know that must have been an error in translation somewhere, but I just get the feeling that Mr. Kojima was one of the lucky few who ever got to see (and maybe start developing for) either Sony's or Philips' CD-ROM drives for the good ole Super Fami.
I want to move forward, not backward, rightwise, not leftwise, and twirling, forever twirling.
I think you mean something more like, "We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, TWIRLING towards freedom!"
To which I must reply, "The politics of failure have failed! We must make them work again!!!" <grin>
As a musician, he sucks. He pretends to be the man to reinvent Japanese music, but it just sounds like disposable synth pop. As a producer, I can only say that he knows what Japanese teenagers like, since his stuff is immensely popular. IIRC, he is the best selling producer of pop music in Japan, which is the second-largest music market in the world.
But just try listening to the music from his performers. Globe is marginally tolerable, Amuro Namie is okay when she doesn't pretend like she can speak English (or sing), Hitomi is talented (for a whiner...the prevalent type of female singing style in Japan), TRF has only a few cool party songs, and Kahala Tomomi is the worst excuse for a singer I've ever heard. But the Japanese eat it up, as do foreigners who like to pretend they're Japanese.
IMO, there are only two TK songs worth listening to: Amuro Namie's "A Walk In The Park," and Shinohara Ryoko's "Itoshisato Setsunasato Kokorotsuyosato," which is the theme song to the original anime Street Fighter II Movie. The latter is quite a good dance song; it goes well with the final fight scene in the movie.
Reminds me of Sharp's Super Famicom-compatible TVs (with amazing monaural sound system! =), Pioneer's Mega Drive/PC Engine-compatible laserdisc player, Sega & Aiwa's (or was it Sony?) boombox/Mega Drive hybrid, and Sega's never-released i286-based PC/Mega Drive hybrid.
Makes me wish I had some extra cash to spend, just to collect all this stuff we'd never see in the U.S. (except for the Pioneer LD player).
I dunno about Majora's Mask being the _only_ interesting thing happening on the 26th (though dammit if I'm not excited). I've heard random mumbling about some other fringe game-related thingy going on in the U.S. at around that time. Apparently some guys calling themselves "Sony" are releasing the vehicle for the next dozen Final Fantasies or so.
The rule you're thinking of is that most tv stations won't air a syndicated show if there are less than 65 episodes. That works out to be 13 weeks (a half season) when run on every weekday.
That's the one. I'd thought differently about the reasons, since back then I'd heard that the same rule applied to Saturday morning (thereby weekly) cartoons too.
Robotech was quite good, despite your anime purist opinions.
...And I think otherwise, despite your Americanization-lenient opinions. It didn't have to chopped up like it was, and I voiced my opinions stating as much. That alright?
It's listed as the #5 best cartoon of all time by Animation Magazine. Several mainstream pubs such as Time and the LA Herald wrote glowing articles about it.
Yes, and all anime fans should listen to what people (and magazines...can't ignore them magazines!) say is good, rather than form their own opinions.
Why do kids nowadays think that anime has to be in its original form to be good? Robotech was a very well done epic in its own right.
Why do people nowadays assume the age of people sitting at another node on the internet based on how much his or her opinion differs from their own? I could be your father, friend. ^_^
On-topic: Robotech was done in its own right all right, but a well-done epic? That's a matter of opinion...and I won't bother arguing with yours.
I know this is sort of not on topic exactly, but as a HUGE Macross fan, I'm wondering if we'll ever get new RoboTech episodes. Wouldn't that be cool?
No.
I normally avoid generalizing, especially when it comes to people's matters of opinion regarding fandom, but most truly clueful Macross fans that I've known despise the mishmash that Carl Macek threw together called "Robotech."
Did it help introduce a new generation of non-Japanese-native fans to anime in the eighties? Yes.
Was "The Macross Saga" largely faithful to the "Superdimensional Fortress Macross" TV Series (not movie)? Yes.
But did it have to chopped up as it was? Forced to be the basis of a purely American series that tied three unrelated TV series together in a way that was never intended by the producers of any of them? Hell no. Of course, I'd heard that there was (is?) a little American law against cartoon TV series with less than 65 episodes, that may have gotten in the way of keeping the three series separate (don't ask -- something against short series being used as cheap advertising for toys).
Besides, there already was supposed to be an American-funded project called "Robotech II: The Sentinels." It was to be a new series for American TV, that had comic-book tie-ins (Hmm...was it from NOW Comics?) and followed from the New Generation (Genesis Climber Mospeada) series of episodes. Instead, funding (and interest) ran short and the first two or so episodes were fused into one horrible "OVA" from Streamline. "Rick" and "Lisa" marry, Minmay sings, blah blah blah. More drivel that was (thankfully) never finished -- and it looked like shit. If that's what you're looking for, I believe the comic series was eventually made into graphic novels, but I never really paid attention. ^_-
Slashdot Mirror
Or, have the Linux user look at his TV over his shoulder, then turn and stare directly at the camera with a tear dropping from his eye, Recycling-Indian style.
Or would that make sense in the context of the actual film? I wouldn't know; you couldn't pay me enough to go see a movie about "hackers" trying to save the world, or whatever. That stuff only happens in fairy-tales and Scandinavian countries.
< tofuhead >
Sorry for replying to myself. Bad form, I know.
Klipsch ProMedias are available for order in BTO Compaq PCs. So Dell's new product is doubly-unremarkable.
< tofuhead >
For THX Multimedia support (not the same THX standard as for [home-]theater), the recognized favorite speaker rig for gamers is the Klipsch Promedias. They've been available for around $250 for, oh, I dunno, forever, making Dell's announcement sorta unremarkable.
Interested readers may want to check the forums and reviews 3D Sound Surge to see how these speakers fare against speakers from Videologic, Cambridge Soundworks, and Aletec Lansing (which in my circle have somewhat of a rep for poor-quality construction).
< tofuhead >
Whoops, not quite the best link. But 1 5T1LL 0WNZ J00.
Here you go.
...and is nigh incomprehensible. Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a robot.
Which is scary. Because robots are scary. Or funny. Or both.
This comment may only be cached on copyright-enforcing hard drives, because I own the copyright and therefore 1 0WNZ J00.
< tofuhead >
IMO, I don't think the frugality of some of the animation production houses necessarily makes their works poorly animated. That's part of the stylistic charm of a lot of shows. Although overly simplistic animation quality in a theatrically-released film can be intolerable, it's always interesting for me to see what Japanese animators are capable of doing with less cels, using less detail, in a TV series or (sometimes) OAV release. A lot of the most interesting frames you can capture from a Japanese series are the simply illustrated ones. (WB's Batman series was refreshing, because it followed a lot of the same principles. Contrast with the more-detailed "Sky Surfers" in syndication...not pretty.)
You're dead-on in saying that they are different from most Western programs, though. A good storyline and good character[/mecha] design are all an animated series needs. Good music and acting go a long way too. Too many American cartoons are produced with only children in mind, meaning all of the above are supposedly optional. Well, I gravitated more towards Star Blazers/Yamato than the Superfriends when I was a kid, and I know a bunch of others who were the same way.
< tofuhead >
What about a version-level credits file with no email adresses listed? That sorta eliminates both problems, and can be helpful in showing who the guys that introduce misfeatures are. Whoops, there goes that idea...
< tofuhead >
You have insulted Dragon's Lair! Now you must die! >_<#
Seriously, the original arcade Dragon's Lair and Space Ace (and that weird Japanese Don Quixote game) were probably the best-looking games of their time. They may be primitive by today's standards (possibly even extremely so), but they were equally as innovative at the time (read: optical disc (laserdisc) reader in an arcade cabinet).
And the hot sister in Space Ace...damn.
< tofuhead >
I do get your point; I was just addressing the jab at the importance of MIDI that you took. (BTW, software synthesizers like QuickTime, DirectMusic, and the Yamaha softsynths are all too CPU-intensive, and have latency problems.)
However, on second examination, I think you and FFFish both actually underestimated the work that people are doing in the field of PC audio in general, 3D audio for games and DVD playback in specific. Sure, Aureal's A3D died a sad death, but DirectSound3D is still around, EAX still exists for some reason or another, QSound is being resurrected by the Thunderbird Avenger (love that name) processor in Philips' new Acoustic Edge (awesome 5.1 card with Yamaha XG MIDI softsynth), and Sensaura is actually doing stuff that's finally making A3D sound a bit dated.
None of that stuff is best left to the CPU. It's just like unaccelerated software 3D animation rendering on consumer PCs...you can do it, but it's not always very nice to witness.
Long story short, there will always be a place for dedicated hardware. I don't think PC audio has gone the way of hardware MPEG-1 decoding just yet.
< tofuhead >
Realistic MIDI playback may be getting progressively more irrelevant for some (not me...I'm going to be getting a Hoontech XG card as soon as I have the time), but digital musicians rely on MIDI for producing their tunes. Where do you think a lot of your MP3s and WAVs come from? Not everything you here is a live recording of a live performance, although with some good soundbanks you might be fooled.
< tofuhead >
I have been interested in Saturday morning cartoons from an artistic perspective for quite some time, and it has always seemed to me that one of their central themes is the lack of identity of a culture that started out as an British colony and has gone on to being the world's truly foremost modern international capitalist nation in a little over 200 years.
Scooby Doo Halloween costumes are another expression of the angst that this lack of cultural identity has caused, as the old certainties of British rule were ripped away and replaced by the values of Democracy. The Victorian ethos and clothing of the British have been replaced by the tie-dyed shirts and communist values of the slashdot hippie. These Scooby Doo Halloween costumes, and indeed the entire Saturday morning cartoon movement, are an unconscious desire to return to the oppressive certainties of old Colonial America, IMHO.
He also started and is the current head of Animeigo (for those who don't know, "eigo" is Japanese for "English language"), the coolest old-school commercial subtitlers. They got it right, dammit: small fonts in legible colors, with subtitles for the sondtracks' lyrics coexisting with the dialog.
P.S. A "Did you know" for all you true blue Mac geeks out there: Robert Woodhead also wrote what later became Virex, the first Mac anti-virus program worth using.
< tofuhead >
Um...ever heard of cosplay? It's not my cup of tea, but if you go to any con, you'll see some otaku dressed as his favorite character.
It's not just an American thing, either. Watch Gainax's "Otaku no Video" and you'll learn what Japanese really think about fans of anime, sentai, Western and Japanese SF, military stuff, and other hobbyist culture.
Incidentally, I'm of the opinion that any Westerner who considers himself an "otaku" when it comes to anime fandom really only does so because the term already exists. This is unlike Japan, where "otaku" is a somewhat derogatory term originally used for obsessed people. Hell...it seems like most people in Japan read manga, and public recognition of even moderately-popular characters is immediate and common, so fandom isn't a hard question...it's only a matter of how hard-core you are...and it wouldn't take too much of a hard-core attitude (by Japanese standards) to put one of those suits on.
The guy who made those suits...now that's an otaku. Next step...Lego version.
< tofuhead >
A little OT, but there are a bunch of DBZ games. There was an arcade game that I'm still trying to get ahold of, and then of course there are the Super Famicom/SNES (and others) fighting games. Damn, those are fun. Some people just try powering up to max and doing fireballs over and over, but all you have to do has deflect or power-block them, and you'd end up with considerably more reserve energy than your opponent, at which point you could wail on them as much as you like. =)
< tofuhead >
Yeah, I know. The NEC SuperGrafx and Sega Mega Drive CD/Victor WonderMega were all available pre-PSX too. But it was just something that caught my eye, and got me nostalgic for when I used to read EGM and Die Hard Gaming Fan, itching for when Sony would beef up my Super NES into a CD-ROM unit that was still being called "Playstation."
< tofuhead >
From the interview:
Eh? I know that must have been an error in translation somewhere, but I just get the feeling that Mr. Kojima was one of the lucky few who ever got to see (and maybe start developing for) either Sony's or Philips' CD-ROM drives for the good ole Super Fami.
< tofuhead >
I love most Anime.
A kindred spirit! Me, I love most books over twenty pages.
< tofuhead >
...Cheryl Stearns to snap some pics on the thing's way down.
< tofuhead >
That was the McDLT.
"Keeps the hot side hot and the cold side cold."
...and the earth littered with non-biodegradeable chemicals.
< tofuhead >
I think you mean something more like, "We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, TWIRLING towards freedom!"
To which I must reply, "The politics of failure have failed! We must make them work again!!!" <grin>
< tofuhead >
As a musician, he sucks. He pretends to be the man to reinvent Japanese music, but it just sounds like disposable synth pop. As a producer, I can only say that he knows what Japanese teenagers like, since his stuff is immensely popular. IIRC, he is the best selling producer of pop music in Japan, which is the second-largest music market in the world.
But just try listening to the music from his performers. Globe is marginally tolerable, Amuro Namie is okay when she doesn't pretend like she can speak English (or sing), Hitomi is talented (for a whiner...the prevalent type of female singing style in Japan), TRF has only a few cool party songs, and Kahala Tomomi is the worst excuse for a singer I've ever heard. But the Japanese eat it up, as do foreigners who like to pretend they're Japanese.
IMO, there are only two TK songs worth listening to: Amuro Namie's "A Walk In The Park," and Shinohara Ryoko's "Itoshisato Setsunasato Kokorotsuyosato," which is the theme song to the original anime Street Fighter II Movie. The latter is quite a good dance song; it goes well with the final fight scene in the movie.
< tofuhead >
Reminds me of Sharp's Super Famicom-compatible TVs (with amazing monaural sound system! =), Pioneer's Mega Drive/PC Engine-compatible laserdisc player, Sega & Aiwa's (or was it Sony?) boombox/Mega Drive hybrid, and Sega's never-released i286-based PC/Mega Drive hybrid.
Makes me wish I had some extra cash to spend, just to collect all this stuff we'd never see in the U.S. (except for the Pioneer LD player).
I dunno about Majora's Mask being the _only_ interesting thing happening on the 26th (though dammit if I'm not excited). I've heard random mumbling about some other fringe game-related thingy going on in the U.S. at around that time. Apparently some guys calling themselves "Sony" are releasing the vehicle for the next dozen Final Fantasies or so.
< tofuhead >
That's the one. I'd thought differently about the reasons, since back then I'd heard that the same rule applied to Saturday morning (thereby weekly) cartoons too.
< tofuhead >
...And I think otherwise, despite your Americanization-lenient opinions. It didn't have to chopped up like it was, and I voiced my opinions stating as much. That alright?
Yes, and all anime fans should listen to what people (and magazines...can't ignore them magazines!) say is good, rather than form their own opinions.
Why do people nowadays assume the age of people sitting at another node on the internet based on how much his or her opinion differs from their own? I could be your father, friend. ^_^
On-topic: Robotech was done in its own right all right, but a well-done epic? That's a matter of opinion...and I won't bother arguing with yours.
< tofuhead >
No.
I normally avoid generalizing, especially when it comes to people's matters of opinion regarding fandom, but most truly clueful Macross fans that I've known despise the mishmash that Carl Macek threw together called "Robotech."
Did it help introduce a new generation of non-Japanese-native fans to anime in the eighties? Yes.
Was "The Macross Saga" largely faithful to the "Superdimensional Fortress Macross" TV Series (not movie)? Yes.
But did it have to chopped up as it was? Forced to be the basis of a purely American series that tied three unrelated TV series together in a way that was never intended by the producers of any of them? Hell no. Of course, I'd heard that there was (is?) a little American law against cartoon TV series with less than 65 episodes, that may have gotten in the way of keeping the three series separate (don't ask -- something against short series being used as cheap advertising for toys).
Besides, there already was supposed to be an American-funded project called "Robotech II: The Sentinels." It was to be a new series for American TV, that had comic-book tie-ins (Hmm...was it from NOW Comics?) and followed from the New Generation (Genesis Climber Mospeada) series of episodes. Instead, funding (and interest) ran short and the first two or so episodes were fused into one horrible "OVA" from Streamline. "Rick" and "Lisa" marry, Minmay sings, blah blah blah. More drivel that was (thankfully) never finished -- and it looked like shit. If that's what you're looking for, I believe the comic series was eventually made into graphic novels, but I never really paid attention. ^_-
< tofuhead >